Fairfax homicide among those linked to Nevada suspect

A 77-year-old Nevada man arrested by Marin authorities is being charged with murdering four women — one near Fairfax, one in Contra Costa County and two more in Yuba County — from 1978 to 1994, Marin County's district attorney announced Tuesday.

Joseph Naso, a Reno resident, is eligible for the death penalty because he allegedly killed more than one victim, said District Attorney Ed Berberian. Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek capital punishment.

Naso, who is being held without bail, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Marin Superior Court.

Berberian declined to release any information about the evidence that allegedly links Naso to the victims. All four murder cases are being prosecuted in Marin under a joint agreement.

The Marin victim was Roxene Roggasch, an 18-year-old Oakland woman whose body was found on Jan. 10, 1977. She was killed and dumped in heavy brush off Sir Francis Drake Boulevard on White's Hill.

Investigators learned of Roggasch's death after getting an anonymous tip from a male caller, who said he found the body while pulling off the road because of car trouble. Roggasch was wearing only panty hose, and her feet had been tied together with white fabric.

Roggasch was survived by her parents in San Jose.

The other victims linked to Naso include Carmen Colon, 22, whose body was dumped off a road in 1978 in Port Costa, Contra Costa County; Pamela Parsons, a 38-year-old waitress, found dead in Yuba County in 1993; and Tracy Tofoya, killed in Yuba County in 1994, Berberian said.

Naso was arrested by Marin sheriff's investigators Monday at the El Dorado County Jail, where he had just concluded a jail term for a probation violation in South Lake Tahoe.

Naso, who was on probation for stealing from a grocery store in 2009, was arrested last April after a probation officer made an unannounced visit to his home and seized four guns, ammunition and other evidence, according to Nevada authorities. The search of the residence sparked the homicide investigations.

According to the Associated Press, public records show that Naso is a New York native who has listed California addresses in Sacramento, Piedmont, Oakland, San Francisco and Yuba City, as well as Minneapolis, Reno and Rochester, N.Y.

"The person has traveled around the country, has been engaged with law enforcement across the country, so we suspect — and have to suspect — that any cases that may emerge in the future have a rather long potential list of states that may been impacted," said Sheriff Mike Haley of Washoe County, Nev.

Naso wrote in court documents that he left Sacramento with his adult son and "moved back to Reno" on Nov. 5, 2004, according to the Contra Costa Times. He described himself as unmarried and unemployed, caring for his "severely disabled" son in a house on Medgar Avenue in Reno.

Neighbors described it as a dead-end street on the outskirts of town with a tall wooden fence and a large barn in the backyard.

"He was just a weirdo," one neighbor, who only identified herself as Summer, told the Times. "We kept away from him. He made my hair stand on end."

Naso spent years quarreling with the Social Security Administration over his son's benefits, records show. In 2004, case workers dropped him as the payee over allegations of abuse and mistreatment.

Naso in turn sued the federal agency in 2005 for slander and defamation, claiming in court documents that case workers wrongly labeled him a kidnapper and provider of drugs and alcohol to his son, who periodically spent time in mental institutions. A judge dismissed the case.

Summer, who said she lived in the neighborhood for 14 years, said Naso lived in the house with his son and a woman. Neighbors noted swarms of police on the property last summer.

"They tore it apart," she said. "They brought in jackhammers and everything."

In New York state, authorities are investigating whether Naso can be linked to the "Double Initial" killings in Rochester in the early 1970s — so named because the three female victims, like those for which Naso is charged in California, had the same initial for their first and last names, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

One of those victims, a 10-year-old girl who was abducted, sexually assaulted and strangled, was named Carmen Colon — the same name as the Yuba City victim.